Persephone Descending

[metaphorliteral]

I think we've got it backwards.
Summer days sweating to slow death
garlanded with roses,
making things grow just to have something to do.

Maybe she spends the summer
lost in her memories of his mouth,
the way he touches her,
the timbre of his voice as he calls her "my queen."

Maybe her mother's overbearing,
her friends don't get it,
other gods come knocking at her door
promising to show her a good time.

Maybe she spends weeks drying flowers
to bring him her scent
to tide him though the next interminable summer,
sleeping with his shirt tucked under her pillow.

Maybe she spends the dog days waiting for that first ripe pomegranate--
swallowing seeds in her haste to taste more
and greeting him at the top of the staircase with lips stained red
and half the fruit still in her left hand.

Maybe she gets the best of it--
strawberries and thunderstorms
and leaves the harvest to other hands
as he leads her into the underworld.

Let Demeter reap corn and shovel snow
while Persephone is benevolent to the dead,
blooming below the earth,
warm in his arms through the all-too-brief winter.